Yes, it’s the last few days of this decade. Where did all the time go? Think back over the last year and the last 10 years to celebrate how you’ve grown and how you’ve made a difference to others. Run a business? Given people a salary that has allowed them to thrive? Encouraged family and friends to go for their dreams? Taken risks because ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained?’ Developed yourself personally and professionally? Contributed to the world and to the planet? My team and I wish you a very happy holiday, full of good times, uplifting family memories and gratitude. Gratitude and fear cannot co-exist. It’s not neurologically possible. So I tell my clients to be aware of what they are grateful for so they are in the right state of mind for what they want to create for the future. Here are the top 10 things I’m grateful for. I encourage you to make your own list.

• My family members are all happy, healthy and moving forward on their own goals.
• My clients have given me their trust and taught me things, much more than they have learned from me.
• I’ve made a difference in the lives of people who are friends, clients, networking contacts, fellow coaches, family members, and more.
• I’ve stood my ground, honored my values, maintained my integrity, and did what I could to be the change I want to see in the world.
• I traveled this year to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Mexico, Washington DC, Ohio, Denver and the Jersey shore.
• I’m finally getting some ROI from the NYC contract I’ve been working on for 3 years.
• I’ve added some wonderful A players to my team that are a pleasure to work with.
• I have a whole bunch of work lined up for next year.
• I’ve studied and learned and expanded my knowledge. (especially The Neuroscience of Change)
• I’ve taken preventive steps to maintain my own health with exercise, nutrition, meditation and routine care/exams.

I wish you expanded empathy and compassion in the New Year. Please direct it at those who least expect it. Thank you for being you.  

• A great employee who you thought wanted to stay forever decides to leave
• You lose a perfect client
• Your biggest sale yet isn’t paying you the money they owe you
• Your cash flow is drying up
• Government just put in a regulation that complicates your business

How does your business bounce back from these disappointments and/or betrayals? Resilience is key even if you have professional business valuers by your side. Your business won’t be resilient unless you’re resilient. What will it take? You’re invited to a meeting where I’m the guest speaker. My spotlight topic is ‘Trust Risk, Betrayal and Resilience’. I’ll be telling my story of what happened to me in the Philippines and the attempt to victimize me again when I got back to NYC and few other stories of famous personalities like Jimmy John Shark. I’ll share how it matters to you as a business owner. Where does resilience come from? How can you build more resilience to shake off the disappointments and betrayals in your life and business? Everyone will receive a free gift that has the potential to shake your world. However, as a business owner whether you’re facing a serious issue or simply want some advice and guidance, there is a 24 hour HR advice for employers that can give a straightforward course of action to mitigate the current issue. This is a business referral group meeting so everyone will have a chance to introduce themselves and meet new people. There is no cost. Date/Time: August 6th at 4pm-5:30pm. Location: Microsoft Store, 6th floor – 677 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10022, between 53rd and 54th Streets, 212-824-3100 Please be my guest. Let me know you’re coming so I can make sure there’s seating for everyone. Thanks. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Knowing that my company’s purpose is all about ‘empowerment’ allows me to make clear decisions about what actions to takeboth reactively and proactively. My coaching, consulting, content creation, mastermind group formation, marketing activities are filtered by the test of ‘Does it further the goal of empowerment?’

One of the most important things that an organization can do is to clearly define its purpose. Sometimes it is difficult to define the purpose of an organization because the people get caught up in the  ‘what we do’ and forget the ‘why we do it’. 

For example, a manufacturing company may believe its purpose is to provide the product it makes for its customers. Although this may seem accurate and appropriate at face value, it may be more valuable to look at the benefits it is providing for its stakeholders including customers, employees, vendors, stockholders, and community. The real value of the product is the way it enhances the lives of the people using it, making it, and supporting it.

You can also identify secondary and tertiary benefits of the product or service being provided. This is like peeling away the layers of an onion. By asking ‘And so?’ after each benefit is identified you can get to a deeper meaning or purpose in emotional terms. Knowing this provides motivation and vision that enables the company to make tough choices and continue to take action when the going gets rough.

Once the purpose is defined and articulated well, the actions of the organization should align with fulfilling that purpose. That means if your organization’s actions do not take you closer to the organization’s purpose, then you should question why you are taking the time and energy to do that thing. This can play a big role in productivity and time management.

So define your company’s purpose and check the weekly schedules of yourself and your employees. Look to see if your activities take you closer or further away from your organization’s purpose. You’ll be more focused on your target, waste few monetary and time resources, improve your momentum , make progress faster, be less distracted and get employees moving in the same direction just from aligning your company’s purpose and all your actions by asking the simple question over and over again. ‘Does it further our purpose?’

I’m interested in your comments. What is your company’s purpose and how do you keep the activities of you and your staff focused on the company’s purpose?

Jim has to make a decision. Tom is on the accounting team Jim supervises. Tom is a likeable person and he does his job fairly well. Howeverlately he’s been coming in late, taking long lunches, and being rather unfocused. He’s taking a long time to get regular  work done. How should Jim talk to Tom?

Sarah is a leader in her organization. She is responsible for getting this project done. She has six other people that she is pulling together. She wants to get it done. She’s ready to dive right in, delegate the work, set up deadlines. But she realizes the value of team ownership of the project and wants the other members to contribute to the process of setting up the project as well as accomplishing the project. But they are dragging their feet, talking about it forever, and not coming to practical decision points fast enough.  How should Sarah handle this situation?

Allen is a consultant. He’s working one-on-one with his client. The client wants to solve a problem one way, but Allen knows that’s not the most efficient way. The client’s solution will work and there might be some advantages to the people in his company. But Allen feels it’s not the most efficient way or the way that costs less. Should Allen go with the client’s preferences and priorities or insist on his way?

Jim, Sarah and Allen have their own decision making styles. They will be better managers if they understand their own styles and can understand the decision making styles of those around them. Jim can either come down hard on Tom because he’s not fulfilling his job description, empathetically ask if Tom has a problem, or set practical standards for performance because the client’s work has to be completed on time. Sarah can do the set up herself not getting the team’s buy-in, be practical with them about the project’s timeline, be impatient that nothing is happening, or understand that others may need more time to discuss it. Allen can insist that the client do it his way or he can be sensitive to the client’s decision making process and the client’s priorities.

Three Decision Making Dimensions

Much research has been done on how people make decisions over the last 60 years. The most influential work was done by Dr. Robert Hartman a triple PhD from Yale and MIT who worked in the fields of psychology, math and philosophy. He showed that people have masters and blind spots along three scales.

• Empathy – feeling for people, their uniqueness and humanness

• Practicality – the most efficient and least costly way to get something accomplished

• Systems – the way things should be, measured in comparison to the true perfect way

Here’s a better way to understand it. Imagine 3 people sitting at a table with each one a pure form of each of the three scales. (of course, in reality we’re all a mix) On the table sits a project. The Systems person will say, “Let’s study this and figure out all the steps. Let’s analyze it first. Then we’ll get started.” The Practical person says, “No, that wastes time. Let’s just do it. We’ll figure it out as we go.” The Empathetic person says, ‘Both of you have really missed the boat. What’s important here is how we work together and the relationships we develop with each other while doing the project.”

In the World of Big and Small Business

Do we see this in the business world? Sure, how about with small businesses? The bankers and investors want to see a detailed business plan before they make a decision. They want to analyze before they take any risk. They are true systems people. The practical entrepreneur, on the other hand, just wants to get started and figure it out as he goes. The classic example of ‘Ready, aim, fire’ vs. ‘Ready, fire, aim’ The empathetic business owner is totally out of this loop, calling his business a ‘practice’ and not really applying business growth principles or ways of thinking.

In larger companies quite often the CEO is a practical person focused on action, efficiency and what works. No wonder it’s hard to really convince him that his people are his main asset and that HR people deserve a seat at the executive table. He’s so focused on profits that the HR industry has had to use the phrase ‘human capital management’ to create a handle that a practical person will give validity to. And Enron is a perfect example where profits and efficiency took precedence over values, ethics and the perfect world view of the systemic thinker.

Jim has choices about how he talks to Tom.

• empathetically ask Tom if he has a problem and be open to listen
• practically tell him that he’s got to get his work done so the firm can get paid
• systemically tell him about he needs to do to fulfill his job description

Sarah appears to be very practical. She wants to dive right in. Her team appears to be very systemic. If she understands this she can:

• give them more time with a definite deadline as she realizes the team buy-in is good for the project long term
• ask to have some more practical people put on the team as this will be become a pattern she won’t want to see repeatedly

Allen appears to be very practical. His client seems very concerned about his people and so is probably highly empathetic. If he understands the client’s decision making process, he can:

• present the client with the choice and the probable consequences and go with the client’s thinking
• just let the client lead him as the client is so definite with his decision

What about you?

• Are your decisions more empathetic, practical or systemic?

• Are you so highly systemic that you have blind spots about practicality and people’s feelings?

• If you are highly practical and work with colleagues or clients who are more empathetic or systemic, do you get frustrated because others don’t think like you do?

• How can a team leader pull together a team where everyone has different masters and blind spots so much so that people don’t see eye to eye?

• Can a team that is widely divergent make better team decisions because they make up for each other’s masters and blind spots?

• Do you want to purposely put together practical people to get a special project done fast?

• If you unwittingly choose only systemic people, do you run the risk that the project might get stuck in analysis paralysis? How much money does that waste?

• If you’re looking to engineer great customer experiences, do you want to put your most empathetic people on the front line? How much more profit can you generate from additional customer loyalty because you provide a great people-to-people experience for your clients?

• What if you clearly are strong in one decision making master but you prefer another?

Socrates says all knowledge is self-knowledge.

Certainly we see the world through our own colored glasses. Our perceptions shape what we claim to be reality. The Attribute Index is an assessment that I administer so you can learn about your decision making masters and blind spots. People who know their strengths and set themselves up for success lead personally and professional successful lives. If you’d like to learn more, please feel free to contact me.

Meanwhile please please a comment. How do you make decisions?

Are you the kind of person who likes to get away? Get away from big city noise and traffic and crowded sidewalks? Get away from a series of appointments and emails and the pressures of a normal workday?

Would you really like to do more planning and evaluatingbut never seem to find the time? Mostly, because there are interruptions: people and phones and emails and the running dialog of stuff to do going on in your head all the time. And a half hour here and there wouldn’t cut it even if you found it in your schedule, because it’s not enough time to focus and get your brain wrapped around the planning and evaluating you want to do.

And even if you made the time and forced yourself to focus, you’d be talking to yourself. You know what you know. You don’t know what you don’t know. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to offer a different perspective, offer feedback, show another path - maybe an easier path to the same objective. Wouldn’t it be nice just to relax, lay your cards out on the table and see what new answers you can come up with?

How about your team? Do you have people who are influential in your business, whether partners, high level employees, virtual assistants, key clients, whose opinions you value, but you never seem to have a long conversation to get the benefits of their input? And if they had a voice in helping to create or enhance your company’s strategies, wouldn’t they be more motivated to help accomplish them?

These are the main reasons business owners schedule retreats:

• getting away to a relaxed setting
• evaluation and planning, a chance to stop and determine strategy
• a day or two devoted to nothing else but focusing on the issue at hand
• bringing together input from pivotal players to make the evaluation and planning meaningful and doable
• helping the participants get to know each other in different ways and enhance communication
• involving a facilitator/coach/consultant who can offer objective feedback, make sure all participants get heard, keep the discussion focused, offer alternative strategies, and steer the group toward an actionable plan

There are lots of ways to structure a retreat. Including some fun activities in between sessions is usually a great idea. Incorporating rest and individual refection time enhances the experience. Time can be scheduled for breaking into pairs to come up with specific solutions or scenarios, as well as debrief time with the whole group. Facilitated interactive activities allow people to have experiences which drive home learning.

If this sounds good, we can help you plan your retreat. Have you been on a business retreat? Please tell us a high point and a low point of your retreat so we can all learn what to include and what to avoid.

"Success is not something to be pursued. It is something to be attracted."

"Work hard on your jobyou'll earn a living. Work hard on yourself, you'll earn a fortune."

These are the thoughts of Jim Rohn, personal development guru who died this week after 46 years of speaking to audiences about business and life. Often called America's foremost business philosopher, he grew up on an Idaho farm, met his coach at age 25 and became a millionaire by the time he was 31. In his lifetime he gave 6,000 presentations, authored 25 books & tapes, and influenced an estimated 6 million people. His claim to fame is that he made things simple and profound. You can view an interview with Jim Rohn at the end of this article

Do we really attract success just by who we are? Can self development generate our success? As entrepreneurs we get caught up in all our daily activities, things we do, clients and opportunities we pursue. We work hard often sacrificing sleep, exercise, family life, close friendships, and growing our brains. We're so targeted on externally-focused doing, doing, doing that we're on a gerbil wheel. Perhaps we're focused on the wrong things. If each of us focused on being smarter, being more empathetic, having a strong foundation in values, being nourished by family and friends, then perhaps we would know more about strategy and working smarter, relating emotionally to clients which engenders true client loyalty, be less prone to making risky valueless decisions, and derive more motivation and support from those around us. Consider these factors:

Passion. You will be great and your work will seem effortless if you love what you do. Are you doing something that you would do anyway even if you weren't being paid for it? Are you doing what you're doing because you can't keep from doing it, because it comes so naturally?

Authenticity. Do you walk your talk? Clients and employees always know when you're trying to be something you're not. Respect, trust, true power and influence have to be earned rather than demanded.

Are you a star? People always want to 'dance with a star' or 'hook their wagon to your star' or have your 'star quality rub off' on them. Are you an expert in your field, someone whose knowledge is unparalleled and who shares knowledge freely?

Are you an enhancer? Do you make people feel special when you're with them? There are enhancers, diminishers and neutralizers. Only enhancers will make other people feel so good that they will be naturally attracted and bring opportunities as well.

Brain development. There is more and more proof that we build new neural pathways by focusing our brains on what we want to achieve, picturing our success, exercising the prefrontal cortex of higher level thinking to override the earlier reptilian and mammalian brains that focus on survival, reduced risk taking, and fear.

Expectations. People who always expect the best, who are always looking for the positive, find it. It's because their mindset shapes what they see. For instance, if you expect hard working and competent employees, then you need to use an Orem recruitment agency when hiring. In addition, selecting staff for a company should be a transparent and understandable process. Gut feelings rarely work as well in business as they do on television. Having employment selection methods should ultimately focus on what will benefit the company the most and how the business can evaluate that through its candidate selection methods.

The work of Barbara Fredrickson over the last 20 years is very interesting. She is a positive psychologist conducting research on students who developed positive thoughts through meditation. Her research has shown that when subjects control their positive thoughts and reported a 3 to 1 ratio of positive to negative thoughts, their lives flourished. They attracted people, opportunities, and each thing built upon another leading to expanded success. Control groups who did not achieve the 3 to 1 ratio had significantly lesser results. (Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson, 2009)

In summary, if you are not developing yourself, you are doing things the hard way, fighting an uphill battle. Read some success-oriented books, listen to some tapes, work with a coach, and check out eCom babes cost. Put in place and prioritize a professional development program. Build professional development for yourself and your employees into your 2010 strategic business plan. In business, first you sell yourself, then your company and then your product/service. If you can't sell yourself first, then the rest never happens. Why would you deny yourself success by not attracting it?

If you'd like to see Jim Rohn in action, watch this interview with Vic Johnson.  http://bit.ly/jim-rohn-video